In a nearly hourlong news conference, the president defended his decision to stay in the race amid questions about his age and mental acuity, but also showed a command of foreign policy.
President Biden at a news conference in Washington on Thursday night.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
President Biden on Thursday answered questions from reporters about foreign policy, whether he is up to defeating former President Donald J. Trump and why he is resisting calls from Democrats to end his candidacy, as he sought to recover from a crisis of confidence that has engulfed his campaign.
With a growing number of Democratic lawmakers, donors and elected officials urging Mr. Biden to drop out of the race after a disastrous debate performance last month, the closing news conference of a NATO summit in Washington became a high-stakes chance for the president to quiet concerns about his candidacy. The results were mixed.
Mr. Biden stumbled early but remained defiant in the face of questions about his fitness to continue his campaign. He struggled to articulate a cohesive case for his candidacy, even as he gave a forceful defense of his record and showed a strong command over foreign policy.
Here are five takeaways:
Mr. Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race. “I’m determined on running,” Mr. Biden said. He dismissed polling showing him losing to Mr. Trump and insisted, “I think I’m the best qualified person to do the job.” But he also acknowledged that the schedule of the presidency had become challenging. “I just got to, just, pace myself a little more,” Mr. Biden said.
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“There has been reporting that you’ve acknowledged that you need to go to bed earlier, end your evening around 8.” “That’s not true. Look, what I said was, instead of my every day starting at 7 and going to bed at midnight, it’d be smarter for me to pace myself a little more. And I said, for example, the 8, 7, 6 stuff, instead of starting a fundraiser at 9 o‘clock, start at 8 o‘clock. People get to go home by 10 o‘clock. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Before the debate, he said, his schedule was “full-bore” and he made the “stupid mistake” of too much travel and too many late nights before the debate. Mr. Biden also blamed his staff for the packed days. “I love my staff,” Mr. Biden said. “But they add things. They add things all the time at the very end.”
Mr. Biden’s response to the first question contained the kind of fumble that has caused Democrats anxiety. Asked about the ability of Vice President Kamala Harris to defeat Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden said that he “wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president.”
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”What concerns do you have about Vice President Harris’s ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket?“ ”Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president. So let’s start there.“
He also slipped while answering a question about military assistance to Ukraine, saying he follows the advice of his “commander in chief” — which is the president — before correcting himself and mentioning his senior military commanders. For the most part, though, he avoided the kinds of prolonged, painful moments he experienced during the debate in which he was unable to complete a thought, even as he meandered at times in his answers.
In the face of questions over his mental acuity, Mr. Biden showed he still had a strong grasp on substance when it came to global affairs. He gave long, detailed answers on various foreign policy matters, including when he said he was prepared to interrupt the relationship between China and Russia. “We have to make sure that Xi understands that there’s a price to pay,” Mr. Biden said, referring to President Xi Jinping of China.
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Xi believes that China is a large enough market that they can entice any country, including European countries, to invest there in return for commitments from Europe to do A, B, C or D or not to do certain things. China has to understand that if they are supplying Russia with information and capacity, along with working with North Korea and others to help Russia in armament, that they’re not going to benefit economically. We have to make sure that Xi understands there’s a price to pay for undercutting both the Pacific Basin as well as Europe and as it relates to Russia and dealing with Ukraine.
He reiterated his longstanding position that Ukraine should not be allowed to use American weapons to strike deep into Russia, including Moscow and the Kremlin. And he detailed his efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, noting that Israel “occasionally” was “less than cooperative.” He also made the case for the global stakes of the election, saying fellow world leaders had told him that “you’ve got to win” because Mr. Trump would be a disaster for their countries.
Mr. Biden rambled while making the case for his candidacy, launching long-winded recitations of what he has accomplished as president and maintaining that he should have the chance to continue, but never landing on a concise message for why he is the best person to do so.
“I’m determined on running,” he said. “But I think it’s important that I real — I allay fears. I’ve seen — let them see me out there, let me see them out, you know — for the longest time, it was, you know, ‘Biden’s not prepared to sit with us unscripted; Biden is not prepared to’ — and anyway.”
He then began ticking through statistics about the reach of his re-election campaign, and suggested that all the work would be for nothing if he left the race, saying, “It’s awful hard to replace in the near term.” He then veered into talking about his record in the Senate, adding, “Anyway, I’m going to be going around making the case of the things that I think we have to finish and how we can’t afford to lose what we’ve done.”
He said polls showed he was the strongest candidate to beat Mr. Trump, but also conceded for the first time that other Democrats could also do so. “I believe I’m the best qualified to govern and I think I’m the best qualified to win, but there are other people who could beat Trump, too,” he said. “But it’s awful to start from scratch.”
While he vowed to stay in the race, Mr. Biden also on multiple occasions defended the credentials of his vice president. He commended her work defending abortion rights and “her ability to handle almost any issue on the board.” But he also made clear that any polling showing Ms. Harris faring better in a matchup against Mr. Trump would not compel him to step down. “Unless they came back and said there’s no way you can win,” Mr. Biden said. “No one’s saying that.”
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“You earlier explained confidence in your vice president.“ ”Yes.“ ”If your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former President Donald Trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race?“ “No, unless they came back and said, ‘There’s no way you can win.’ Me. No one’s saying that. No poll says that.“
